T-Mobile admits to intercepting secure emails from phones

Mobile phone giant T-Mobile has admitted to inadvertently intercepting secure emails sent from its customers as a result of a technical error, which could see people recycle their mobile phones in search of a different service provider.

Customers that were using encrypted SMTP to connect to a mail server other than T-Mobile's had their data intercepted and disrupted by the operator after a misconfigured upgrade, the company stated.

In statement released yesterday (January 11th) the company admitted that the fault had affected a small number of people in December and they have been working hard with their supplier to fix the issue.

"We would like to reassure our customers that we do not use our network to access the content of their emails, nor are we doing anything that would jeopardise their data security," the statement read.

The issue was initially raised by Nottingham-based web developer and security researcher Mike Cardwell who discovered that his secure email traffic was being blocked following the purchase of a new PAYG SIM card.